Follow us

Posts by Susie Lau

Sort

Delvaux, a floor up from Cerruti (yay for short distance presentation hopping, boo to Lanvin and Margiela being opposite ends of Paris) presented several new styles, one of which is this pleasingly chunky saddle shoulder bag that features a woven leather that is exclusive to the Belgian leather goods house. When will my Delvaux virginity be lost? I'm hoping it's soon...

Did anyone ever read about book bags in crap American 'young adult' fiction and wonder whether they were better than a boring school rucksack? Olympia Le Tan has a much better definition of the 'book bag' with her book cover clutches and satchels that have been going for a few seasons, turning Jack Kerouac, J.D. Sallinger and Moby Dick classics into beautiful and covetable accessories. Colette can't get enough of them and at the Palais de la Découverte's astronomy section, Le Tan presented her new collection that included more novel cases (novel in reference to the newness and the book) as well as a travel theme that saw Le Tan create a spherical globe swing clutch.

I've always been a sucker for an 'ugly' shoe and I'm not afraid to call this Balenciaga loafer/Doc Marten/creeper/belt buckle hybrid shoe just that. I mean it in the most endearing way possible though. If I had these, I'd look down at my feet and constantly motion to my 'ugly shoes' whilst secretly being quite pleased that such fugliness is on my feet.

Louis Vuitton opened their 'Voyage en Capitale' exhibition at the Carnavalet Museum in Paris which showcases the saga of Louis Vuitton's heritage collections, investigating the Vuitton family's technical research, craftsmanship process and artistic collaborations. This free interpretation to conclude the exhibition by Frédérique Chauveaux is a haunting group of LV trunks with projections of men and women writing around inside, that were imagined by Chauveaux to be on a ship' scabin. Who's afraid of the big bad trunk? I was... a little... I was then cheered up by a pretty Forties brassiere poking out of one of the installation trunks though.

At the 40th Annivesary Kenzo show finale, Vanessa Reid's skill in combining pieces from Kenzo's 40 year history as well as Antonio Marras's pieces for the house, has to be seriously commended as each model was elongated, padded out and layered up so that every one looked like a culturally-ambiguous doll.

Nicholas Kirkwood has found a solution for the love-hate relationship that a lot of people have with kitten heels. Actually, for the most part I think it's hate, which I put down to the odious name it bears. As one of his S/S 11 shoe shapes Kirkwood has added a wooden platform to the front which a) solves that teetering problem that women have with a wee and short heel and b) makes for a bizarre contrast that works.

The first two days of New York Fashion Week were cold. I don't mean 'a little bit chilly' cold. I mean cold that cuts into your bones and boxes your ears in as you're working, rendering you numb and speechless. Good thing I've been sweeping into shows all eyes on clothes and not making any conversation. Peter Som showed a lot of the sort of outerwear that I could have ripped off the models, running away from Mac Milk studios swathed with furry arms.

Tess Giberson didn't start out as a knitwear design and isn't by definition one now, but from her quiet yet assured steps to presenting at NYFW, it's her knits and plays with fabric collaging and deconstruction that have been impressing me.

The lovely thing about New York Fashion Week are the abundance of presentation spaces that floods clothes with beautiful light, like this, as seen at Jeremy Laing. The Canadian designer who invariably turns to the lush landscape that his home country affords him as inspiration. This time round, the textures are still of an organic nature but have been tarred with a grungier brush.

I don't get excited about lingerie that often, and underpinnings don't feature often during fashion week as the primary focus. Brooklyn-based cult lingerie label The Lake and Stars though have just picked up the Ecco Domani Award though, a source of funding for many a young American designer, and put on their first presentation inspired by the American cliched idea of Italian neoclassicism. I'm taking it for granted that a diamante encrusted cami and panelled knickers are acceptable outdoor attire.

Rag & Bone provided everyone with the key show that kicks off NYFW, a strange outcome for a label once known primarily for denim and preppy pieces. David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have taken it up a notch once more and mined Scottish Harris Tweeds, tartans, collegiate dressing, Inuits, Eskimos and Saamis traditional dress to come up with a potent combination.

Mountaineering and Californian outback was the theme at Band of Outsiders' show (gone was the set-heavy presentation). It opened with four of the male models lowering themselves down onto the runway with bungee ropes.

Complexgeometries, who have made a success of their basics with a twist or twisted basics (however you want to look at it), have done shoes for the first time in collaboration with LD Tuttle. Apparently they're not monstrous to walk in at all despite the amount of leverage off the ground. This will require physical investigation to confirm though.

There were only two instances but a pair of skinny trousers in royal blue and baby pink lurex at Alexander Wang is enough of a prompt to perhaps expect more of the stuff from the new season (see Prada menswear A/W 2011). Wang has also decided to tackle marabou in his latest collection, gracing shoes that match the abundance of fur trim on the coats. Shoes that also do some dusting is, I suppose, the Betterware product that a stay-at-home freelancer like myself has been looking for all this time.

Preen's collection added facets of geometric prints and florals inspired by the North Californian Arts and Craft movement, as well as a ton of metal beading that added a richness to their usual fare of precise cuts. Thigh flashing as seen at Altuzarra also continues here!